Russell celebrates ‘the perfect lap’ after prevailing in Baku Qualifying

George Russell was ecstatic to complete what he believed was “the perfect lap” in Qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, which earned the Mercedes driver pole position by a commanding 0.837s over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Based on the timesheets alone, it looked like a straightforward session for Russell as he topped every segment, but he faced consistently tight competition from the Scuderia, Red Bull and McLaren.

With his team mate Kimi Antonelli out of Qualifying following a damaging error in Q1, the fight for pole was wide open heading into Q3. But despite his rivals’ best efforts, the Briton improved with every lap to wind up with an unbeatable time of 1m 42.526s, setting up his fifth P1 start of the season.

“It’s been a while, so it definitely feels good,” he said. “It’s probably the biggest margin of my whole career, even including F2, F3 days, so the lap felt really sweet.

“The car’s been feeling great this weekend, and on a track like this, when you can hook it up like that, it feels really amazing.

“I was feeling good, to be honest. I think Max [Verstappen] has been very fast this weekend. I don’t know what happened to him at the end. I think with the yellow flag for Lando [Norris], he didn’t have that last chance, so it would have been interesting to see.

“But it was just the perfect lap at the end. I was in a good gap behind [Isack] Hadjar, which gave me a nice little slipstream, probably by another tenth or two down this back straight. So yeah, it was great.”

The messy Qualifying hour saw plenty of drivers lock up and take to the run-off areas, which caused yellow flags that subsequently impacted others’ laps, but Russell succeeded in largely avoiding the disruption.

He nevertheless remained aware that the Baku City Circuit could throw up further incidents on race day that would jeopardise his chances of clinching his first victory since Round 8 in Austria.

Offering his thoughts about how the Grand Prix might unfold, Russell explained: “I’m feeling good. I think we’re in a great place to go for the win. But of course, this is Baku and anything can happen.

“Of course, Charles is going to be motivated to probably throw one down the inside at Turn 1, but whatever happens, I feel confident that we can go for the win.”